More theorycrafting – rogues as healers?

So this is a post I’ve been thinking about since I started levelling my rogue up from 100 to hit the new cap.

During the legion levelling process as Assassination, and filling up my rogue’s artifact, whilst also having Garona as a fighting partner throughout the process, I noticed that Blizzard have put a fair amount ‘Drop poison on the floor’ mechanics into the spec this expansion.

I think it’s a great idea, I mean as I’m sure many people have experienced, I’ve had saps and blinds broken thanks to it, but I think it’s an interesting mechanic that works well and as intended.

So I thought about it, and have developed the idea – whats to stop those poisons from providing more utility to a group? Or even healing them? If my rogue is throwing these vials around anyway, surely there is no reason I couldn’t drop some kind of healing drought near the group? What about using poisons on bosses, or trash, which subsequently reduces damage they deal to their primary target?

I mean, it might look a little crazy – having some undead rogue dash around the map, throwing potions everywhere, but how cool would that be? To be honest it might come a bit short and the class itself would need quite a lot of a rework, but here are a few ideas for spell changes that I think could be interesting:

Standard heals

Small healing draught:

Drop a healing potion that heals all friendly characters within 10 yards

Healing draught:

Place a healing draught on the floor at your current location, which when walked over will shatter and heal the breaker for a percentage of their total health

Large healing draught:

Throw a healing draught at a target, healing them for a percentage of their total health.

Utility poisons

Will just point out here, in my mind, the rogue would be swapping poisons consistently throughout a fight depending on the situation, which could then be quickly applied with Shiv before continuing your role in the fight.

Draining poison

For the next 10 seconds, the target will take a small percentage more damage from all sources.

Weakness poison

For the next 10 seconds, the target will deal a small percentage less damage to it’s primary target.

Blinding poison

(Won’t work on bosses)

For the next 10 seconds, the target has a percentage chance to miss all attacks,

Deep wounding poison

(Won’t work on bosses)

For the next 10 seconds, the target is rooted

Cooldowns

These are general reworks on existing spells and talents that I thought might be interesting ideas.

Cloak of Shadows

Potentially replace this with a raid-wide cool down, which removes unfriendly magic from all targets within a range (this could be limited obviously some fights the rebuffs are what makes it hard)

Cheat Death

Hide the target from death, reducing all damage they take by 90% for the next 6 seconds.

Vanish

Would work similarly to paladins Blessing of Protection, and can be cast of another player, instantly dropping their threat, putting them into stealth for X seconds, and reducing damage they take.

OK – so there we go, and there is of course more that could be added to this, especially with talents. I personally believe this would work, but I come from a PvE background, maybe this would be too overpowered in PvP, but it’s hard to tell!

Let me know what you think in the comments below. If it’s ridiculous let me know, and if you have ideas that can build on this, tell me that too!